UNC Charlotte’s Student Government Association is meeting November 29 to discuss gender-neutral housing. The proposal would ask school administrators to allow students to choose roommates of the opposite sex. The student group Campus Allies has been working for more than a year to get gender neutral housing at UNCC. Anthony Dondero is a transgendered member of the group. He chose to live off campus.
He says, "It was first and foremost a safety issue for me. I didn't want to be housed in an all-female dorm where I would immediately have been 'outed' as transgender and possibly been harrassed, and threatened, assaulted, things like that."
The Student Government Association is not expected to vote on the proposal until at least January. President Connor Dugan says the group needs time to gather more information. Dondero says if the measure is approved, it likely wouldn’t take effect until 2015. UNC Chapel Hill became the first public school in the state to allow gender-neutral housing earlier this month. Students there can choose roommates of the opposite sex next fall. Private schools Duke University and Warren Wilson College both have gender neutral housing options.
